AH: So who is behind this release.

KS: Well, I can only blame myself. I did it all, back to front and back again.

AH: Which parts?

KS: The whole thing; song-writing, performing, programming, arranging, recording, promotion and distribution, even the terrible artwork and amateur web site is my fault. Not that I'm boasting, of course...

AH: Were there any other artists involved at all?

KS: Trick question ... Yeah, there was you, of course, doing backing vocals on six of the tracks, and Matthias Postel who played bass on two tracks. I would have liked more collaboration, but most times I wasn’t in a position for it. Maybe in the future…

AH: Tell me about the position you were in.

KS: In 2002 I turned forty, and I thought, let’s record a self-produced CD for my birthday. But I hadn’t performed music in ages and was really rusty, especially the singing. So I did a couple of tracks, but there was little time, because I also had a family and was struggling to feed them with my meager freelance engineering income at the time, and after about a year or so I was ready to give up.

AH: And then the recording degree happened?

KS: Exactly. Same one you did. I started working for a private training provider, and they have to upskill their people. So my boss suggested I do a Recording Arts degree on the side. It had a research component, and I thought to myself, I’ll research the recording of my own album. Of course, this wasn’t very original, so I combined it with music distribution over the internet. So then I had to record myself and release a CD because it was necessary to do the research. And it forced me to learn all that stuff about web sites and music on the net that I didn’t really know too much about. All in the name of advancing my employer’s profile. I called it my ‘Masterplan’.

AH: Did the plan work?

KS: To a large extent, yes. The CD is out, a web site is up and I know lots of stuff that I didn’t have a clue of before. Also, I feel very liberated because I used to think of myself as a failed-musician-turned-sound-engineer. And now my engineering skills have helped to revive the musician. Kind of failed-musician-turned-sound-engineer-turned-back-into-musician. (laughs)

AH: So how did you promote the album?

KS: I’m kind of working on that right now. It is distributed by CD Baby who are based in Portland, Oregon. They are the No 1 on the net for selling CDs of independent artists. They also organise the digital distribution via iTunes and loads of other download services. I just signed up and wrote plenty of promo blurb for my shop corner on their site. And they did the rest and linked through to my web site, and I linked back to theirs. I also put a few tracks up on amplifier.co.nz, and I am looking into SmokeCDs and nzmusic.com, but haven’t gone there yet. There are plenty of ideas, like MySpace and Martian Music in Australia, and I am implementing them slowly, one by one.

AH: What do you think is important in an internet music service?

KS: I’ve only tried a couple so far, but I already have a fair idea. The cool thing is distribution is typically non-exclusive, so you can put up your tracks on as many of these sites as you like. And you should do that, have your music on some really big ones that attract a lot of visitors, but also on some smaller ones where it is easier for people to find you, especially if you can get a featured listing. You will need to research what they can do for you, and compare this to their fees. It is easy for a service to make a flash-looking site, but if they don’t get a lot of hits you are wasting your money, especially if your subscription is time-limited. See what the subscribed musicians have to say about their services. Email them and politely ask for their comment.

AH: Where did you go to develop the necessary expertise?

KS: I just started googling like a maniac. Whenever I had a thought I put it into google and looked at my search results. Certain sites kept coming up, either directly in google, or as links and recommendations from related web sites. Those are the ones I kept going back to. If you want real hands-on stuff about the subject, my favourites have got to be musicbizacademy.com and cdbaby.net, the musicians’ backdoor of the CD Baby service. The Musicbizacademy also sells what must be the best how-to guide to internet distribution I could find. And they don’t pay me to say this.

AH: Do you think this is the future model for artists?

KS: It definitely has a lot of advantages over the traditional recording contract business where you sign your music away to some dubious suits that are only in it for the money, your money. This way I can control my fate as a musician. I don’t have to be afraid that I’ll get dropped if I don’t sell enough CDs or I am not the flavour of the month anymore. It is low risk. At the same time, it is a lot of work though, definitely not a secret recipe to instant success, but whatever rewards are yours. Funny you mention future models, because one great site discussing a lot of this stuff is the Future Of Music Coalition at futureofmusic.org.

AH: So can we expect a follow-up CD soon?

KS: Not sure, I need to promote this one for now. Originally I wanted to finish recording this one in one year, but it took me three, so a new one is not on the cards immediately, let’s say not in 2006 at least.